Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I did a lot of countertenor singing practice and my voice is finally getting stronger particularly in the lower notes. It is nearly fit for public consumption. I am sounding like a rougher version of Jimmy Somerville of the Communards. I cannot sing as straight as he does because I am primarily a jazz player but that's good as it is nice to develop originality. Because over the next month I will be going out playing with various people on my harmonica I did quite a bit of harmonica practice for once. Although, because of a lot of neglect I have become a bit out of practice all my former glories are returning! I improvise a lot better these days on the rock and pop songs because I keep it simple. I still overplay when I do jazz but I am trying to learn that less is more.

At three o'clock in the afternoon with my family we went for a walk in Durham in the evening light. Miles drove us there and that was really good because he is getting the driving at last. We started walking from Shincliffe just outside Durham and the river was fairly high because of the previous rain and as we walked into the centre along the river in the gathering light we saw two herons and a salmon attempting to jump up the weir. I am still struck by seeing salmon in the River Wear in Durham but there you go! We were going to be Inshanghai restaurant but it was a bit early so we decided to walk around the town up to the cathedral. At the moment, I am running up every slope little or large that I come across because I want to get my legs in training for running up a Lakeland mountain as soon as possible. So every time I see a hill I dash off yelling "hill training" and quite often my family comes running up behind me. It sounds crazy but a man has to do what he needs to do and I really need to do a mountain : running! By the time we got to the cathedral we realised we could not go down the back path because it was closed so we had to walk back through the town again. The food at the restaurant was great as usual.

After getting stuck into two large platefuls of food and the boys did even better than that we went up to St Oswald's Hall to Baha'i event: the Celebration of the Birthday of Baha'u'llah. It was a really good do and I saw many Baha'i friends that had not seen for a while because we do so much in our own community directly being involved with the public as well as doing the family thing with our children and relatives. We tell people about the Baha'i Faith wherever we go but only if it is relevant to a conversation. The last thing that anybody wants these days is to be "told" about our beliefs. Sure, if somebody brings up why they think things are going wrong in our society on any issue as a family of individuals we give our view about that which is a mixture of Baha'i beliefs and what we personally think needs to be done. What I liked about the event last night is that a lot of the people were just talking about ordinary subjects although I had a good discussion with a very nice man from Iran who was a Muslim although he also said that he was an atheist. An atheist Muslim I think that makes sense but I do understand what he was getting at. He said that there were a lot of problems in Iran and he was particularly against religion : any religion. I asked him why he came to a religious event and he said he was just interested so I made the joke that coming from a country where it is popularly perceived in the West that it is full of religious fanatics that we at this Baha'i event were making him feel at home because he thought all religious people were fanatics ! He is a good man and I gave him my card and hope to see him in the near future. I think I will. He is studying sociology at Durham University and back in Iran he was studying engineering. I told him he should go back to engineering! Our lads also managed to woof even more food down at this event after the restaurant and I seriously wondered where they put it!

We left the Baha'i event at about nine o'clock and we walked back to the car taking a shortcut which seemed like a good idea at the time but when we went down this path it was completely black. It was a hoot and we should do that again. When we left the Inshanghai restaurant our lads wanted to walk around the river when it was all dark and I said quite firmly "No". It is all right doing that sort of thing on your own but when there are four of you there is a high chance somebody (my wife!?) will indeed go straight into the river. Next year though we will take torches and go by the river as it will be good fun. Miles drove us back and again he is picking up the driving quite well now and on a scale from one to 10 he has been at one for about 15 hours worth of driving just not being able to get first gear basically. But yesterday he rose up to five and I am sure that he will be able to take his test early next year.

Last night I had a really good conversation with a friend of mine Darren Howell a Durham Baha'i who is now married and for quite a long time I always teased him about getting married. Well now he has finally done it and he has a lovely nice baby as well. His wife is a delightful woman and from what Darren was saying about boys needing fathers, really good stuff, I know that he is a good dad as well as husband and will continue doing that. It is funny but some people you just know are going to do it all right which is good for everybody. It was quite funny because he was sat with his baby in front of him in a car seat baby carrier and when the lad woke up he looked at his dad and then started just gazing at me for about 10 minutes I think. I do not know what it is sometimes , children just seem to lock onto me. One time when I took the boys skateboarding a couple of years back in Richmond there was a five-year-old playing in the skate park and I just sat there reading my maths textbook minding my own business. Within a few minutes as the boys were doing their thing on the ramps she came over and started asking me questions about what I was doing so I asked her what she was doing on her own so she told me all about her mum and dad working and that she had a woman looking after her at the other end of the park but as she was doing this she started to get cosy and snuggled herself into my side which I was not best pleased about because I really did want to just get on reading but we continued on with the dialogue. I asked Fiona about this while some children home in on me sometimes and she says it is because I smile at them and notice them with my eyes. Apparently this is something that primary teachers do all the time to get the children's attention. Oh well that is something I must try and stop but have not succeeded yet but it has also been the case, maybe because the boys have got a lot bigger now that small children do not approach me in skate parks these days! Mind you, there are plenty of teenagers who talk to me in Rkade skate park in Redcar.

Today, Sunday, I took the lads down to the skate park or should I say Miles drove us down there and he is really getting into it. The lads had a good session and I had a good laugh with two of my friends down there two of the mums who take their lads on a Sunday. Scooters have been really good for the skate park and it is nice to see lots of young people really going for it and getting a lot of exercise. It will put years on their life although there may be a few broken wrists on the way. It's worth it! In the afternoon we went to visit my mum and she was very well but after she heard of the woes of Miles learning to drive she said she would light a candle for him in the Catholic Church that she goes to. I said that was okay so long as there was an "L" on it! I think just the thought of the prayer was working even before she went to the church because Miles took us home and had an excellent session doing pretty much everything right. Good dog and for all the worry he has given me this week with his driving : bad dog! Still that's kids they drive you crazy and worry you but they do get there if you give them intelligence and a good push along. Direction and motivation are all that most children ever need. A good weekend.